How to Get Cheap Thrills This Halloween

Halloween is almost here, and if you’re anything like me, you just love decorating your house for this spooktacular holiday. Witches, goblins, ghosts—everyone’s invited to our bootiful home! (Yes, I realize I just used the words “spooktacular” and “bootiful,” but that’s only because I just inhaled 50 fun-sized candy bars and now my brain feels like it’s on a frickin’ merry-go-round. Whoo! Everything’s spinning!)

But while decorating for Halloween is truly one of life’s joys, sadly, this year is a little bit different because our country’s in a no-fun recession. Boo! Recession! Yes, in these tough economic times, it’s unfortunately not as easy to justify spending $500.00 on faux pumpkins and inflatable zombie rock bands. At least that’s what my husband said when he tackled me to the ground at the craft store and pried the Visa card out of my hand with a rather sharp scrapbooking tool. Meany.

So with no money, what’s a ghoul to do?

Well, have no fear because today I’m going to tell you how to achieve big thrills for little cash. Simply follow the tips below, and in no time flat, your house will have that “natural Halloween look” that’ll be the envy of your neighborhood. People will be talking about your house for weeks!

Tip #1:Stop cleaning immediately.

This one should be obvious. After all, nothing says “haunted crackhouse” more than a week’s worth of crumbs and cat hair all over your floor. (If you have an incontinent baby or elderly parent, even better!) So put away the vacuum, put up your feet, and let the organic cobwebs and your miserable, filthy squalor do the spooky decorating for you!

Tip #2: Stop grooming immediately.

For my money, there’s nothing more frightening than a 40-year-old woman’s face at 6 a.m. in the morning. (Of course I’m just basing that on personal experience.) But just imagine the fear on the little trick-or-treaters’ faces when the lady of the house flings open the front door and they get an eyeful of her dark roots, unshaven legs and disgusting five o’clock shadow. Those kids won’t sleep for days!

Tip #3: Hire some prostitutes.

Why waste money on decorative witches and skeletons when you can just click on Craigslist and invite a couple of scary-ass meth whores to loiter in your front yard instead? Not only will Trixxie and She-manda give your neighbors a fright with their hollow eyes and realistic needle marks, but you’re also entitled to 40% of the profits they make “trick-or-treating” with the weird, lonely dads in the crowd. Now that’s what I call a win/win!

Tip #4: Bury dead people in your front yard.

Isn’t it kind of ridiculous to spend tons of money on fake, decorative headstones when you could actually be earning money by turning your lawn into a realcemetery? Oh, sure, burying human remains in your front yard might violate multiple state and federal laws, but so what? Just think of how thrilling it’ll be for the neighborhood kids when they fall into a freshly made grave or two. That’s a priceless Halloween memory their parents’ lawyers will never let you forget!

Tip #5: Tell everyone what your house is worth.

Hang two pieces of cardboard on your front door. On one piece, write down how much you paid for your house when you bought it. On the other, write down the amount of your house’s current market value. I know, yikes! You’ll never be able to move now, and that’s horrifying for both you AND your neighbors! (Note: You may actually want to keep an oxygen tank nearby when you do this.) (And a lit match.)

Well, that’s it for this year. I hope my professional tips help you have the spookiest, cheapest Halloween ever! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go inhale a few more fun-sized candy bars because it looks like my sugar buzz is about to wear off.

Comments

I think I’m just going to dig some empty graves in the front yard and save them for obnoxious high school kids who show up a
t 10 and demand candy. I’ll knock them on the head and push them in. They can emerge later like zombies, which are so hip and cool these days

Glad to see you aren’t letting the economy keep you from having the scariest house on the block. I’ll be following the cleaning tip and telling my husband it’s for halloween…we will see how that goes over.

Cracking up as usual…the scariest of all is #5. In fact so scary my hair turned white…now I don’t have to buy a wig…actually maybe I will beg at my door instead. Every time someone comes up for candy…I will beg for money to pay my mortgage. Seriously the crap they sell in the stores as costumes for $50 no flippin’ way.

I just scared everyone in my local grocery store. I have a bad cold, haven’t showered for two days and am still wearing what I put on Saturday. I went to the store in that condition to get donuts. But I thought if I didn’t look at other customers, they couldn’t see me. How well do you think that worked?

Dear God I needed this. It’s October 26 and I have no idea what my 2-year-old twins will wear for Halloween. People keep asking like this is the greatest concern of my life. THEY ARE TWO YEARS OLD. They don’t like things on their head plus they will never remember.

Great ideas! Also, right next to my home value I think I’ll print up my boyfriend and my credit card debt, as well as a really large print out of my hourly earnings. It will give the neighbors nightmares for WEEKS!

Oh thank you for the suggestions. Think they would work on an apartment as well as a house? Because I am a graduate student in pharmacy school, I don’t have the tools to creat tip #5…but since I pay out-of-state tuition for pharmacy school, I figured I would write down the amount of money I spend each year on tuition on one piece of cardboard. Better yet, write down the grad total that I will owe the government when I am done with this stupid professional choice of mine. Oh and as for tearing into the bags of fun-size candy bars, my roommate and I do that all year long….

Have two poster-sized photographs created and mounted on foam-core: one of you in a bathing suit at 16 and one of you in a bathing suit now. Put one on one side of your door, and the other on the other side. Between them, on the door, post this message:

Children as you pass me by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now so shall you be
Prepare for middle-age and follow me.

Believe me…nothing is more horrifying to teenagers than the knowledge that those tight, cute little bodies are destined for the scrap heap of life. But unfortunately, they don’t believe it will ever happen to them, so it may not have as much effect as you might wish it would.

I’m dying of laughter here!!!!! LOVE. IT. With me tho, it’s gray roots showing….. And #5 would scare me too much to be able to do it. For those who rent, you could just substitute the value of your 401k…….

OMG, this is leaving me almost PIMP….which goes well with the rest of the decorations I already had done…..no more showering or cleaning here. I mean, come on, I love the fact I don’t have to clean anymore!!!

Stellar advice, as I’ve come to expect from you Wendi. Call me a traditionalist, though…I think I’m going to stick with my usual crack-whores again this year. I think I’ve made it clear how I feel about meth.

the problem w/your blog is that you leave us nothing clever to say with our comments. i mean, how are we gonna top your list? “hey, maybe #4 should be to bury LIVE people in your front yard”? ya see? it’s just superfluous. i mean, some people here make excellent attempts, but it’s like trying to onstage after chris rock or jerry seinfeld. unless you’re bill cosby, it’s just useless.

Lucky for me, my lack of housekeeping skills got me on the fast track to Halloween decorating months ago! Super-scary. In addition, my recent disinterest in the hobby of gardening has contributed to the Halloween curb-appeal of my house.

I like the last one the best. I am 40. I hope I don’t look too scary first thing in the morning. I just wrote a post about how frightening Michaels craft store is. Spending ridiculous amounts of money on crap is a scary thing.

Halloween 2010: I show up on the neighbors doorstep in my p.j.s. early afternoon to drop off something her kid was borrowing for his costume. I ask her to keep an eye out on my house as I cannot come to the door for trick or treaters this year.

She looked at me and said ‘you okay?’ I told her in my most put upon voice that I felt rotten, I had the measles. Her husband who was ignoring the whole exchange up till then glanced my way, did a backflip over the lazy-boy and booked it into the farthest room in the house, screeching ‘Get out of here! Don’t you understand you’re contagious?’

He did not stick around to find out it was my costume for the kids community party I was hosting at the community center.

His wife just about collapsed with laughter and had to hold herself up with the door frame as she explained to me that he had never had any of the childhood diseases, and was in mortal terror of them. They can be, er, awkward in an adult male.

I was worried that I had ‘cheaped out’ too much by wearing my new jammies, and was just announcing to the whole area that I was too lazy to get out of my jammies on a Sunday. (True.) So I went the extra mile, (half-inch) and drew dots with my lipliner rather than a face. (I figured that going without ANY make-up was just too scary.)

Rather gratifying to be that scary.

The only Halloween piece that I have ever liked more than yours was Erma’s list for “How to tell when you are too old to trick or treat.” That was a classic.

I desperately want to find that one again, and post it up beside the door for next year. I may post the bought/worth house notice as well. It may be even scarier numbers next year, kiddies.

I am really enjoying your posts, for someone who did not know you existed, last week.